American Chop Suey

I had some mending and hand-sewing chores (long put off) today, and so I turned on Public Television, which on Saturday afternoon is totally devoted to cooking. The problem was, we are having a really cheapy dinner tonight (and tomorrow and lunch on Monday). This meal is called American Chop Suey, which I learned when I came to the Boston area and discovered a dish by the name on the cafeteria menu.

American Chop Suey is tubular pasta, tomato sauce, ground beef and seasonings baked in a casserole topped with Parmesan cheese. I bad been eating in all my life in school cafeterias. It was one of the few things on the school menu that I would eat.

Now this is tasty, but no one on the PBS or the Food Network is ever going to devote any time to this dish. It's homemade, frugal and plain. Not dreary. We love it.

I put the rest of the ricotta in mine, and used a combo of canned tomatoes and pasta sauce. Again frugal, maybe even cheeseparing. Meanwhile, Ming was roasting delicious chicken and cooking salmon on a bed of veggies and Christopher Kimball was going crazy with smoked and grilled pork chops, all stuff one can get excited over. Todd English was in Japan eating Kobe beef and tongue and noodles and of course Todd is so sexy one can get excited about just strolling through Japanese restaurants with him, vicariously. Then the Foodie Gourmet showed up and they did slow food in Australia and the sight of all that wonderful rhubarb was giving me
palpitations, and the wine and the cute black pigs.

So I finally pulled myself away from the quasi-gluttony and made my way to the kitchen to brown the beef, the onion and garlic, cook the pasta and mix everything together. It's waiting to go into the oven, and I'm still feeling a little let down, but of course the price is right, and unlike Kobe or Wagu beef, it won't break the budget. Hell, it hardly dents it.

Frugally yours, and feeling someone out of sorts,

The Cheeseparer